The Cliffs Notes President

So, maybe it's just that (1) I've been watching too much West Wing lately, (2) I'm projecting my own guilt over not having studied enough for the bar, or (3) I'm just generally an elitist snob...

... but it really is completely insane that the President of the United States can't be bothered to read more than one page of a document that should be -- but, in reality, probably wasn't -- largely determinative of the decision whether or not to send the country to war.

I mean, it's a fairly complicated world out there, don'cha think?

So, the question is, will anyone from the White House press corps have the balls to ask if the President has actually read the 9/11 Commission report?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Bush-Cheney 2004
Simple, Comforting Answers for a Complex, Scary World

UPDATE: A kindred spirit. Personally, I think 5-2 is being awfully charitable.

I Heart Franklin Foer

This article in The New Republic almost moved me to tears. It's very similar in theme and rhetoric to the Washington Monthly piece by Bruce Reed from a while back, but a bit tighter on both counts, in my opinion. Among other things, it reminded me to be pissed off about the Bushies' decision to move peer review out of the agencies and into OIRA. Bitches.

This is a good theme, I think, and one that can tie in well with the corporate corruption meme that pops up every now and then: When nobody's around to play the honest broker, disaster follows. all these guys really are cut from the same crappy cloth.